Indigo for Hair: Processing

[Henna Sooq]

Just a tid bit of information for the day!

I asked about indigo processing. This is the conversation:

"Dye was obtained from the processing of the plant's leaves. These were soaked in water and fermented in order to convert the glycoside indican naturally present in the plant to the blue dye indigotin. The precipitate from the fermented leaf solution was mixed with a strong base such as lye, pressed into cakes, dried, and powdered.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigo_"

My question was is this the process for indigo for hair usage coming from India. The answer below:

"The method mentioned is to extract dye from indigo to use it for dyeing textiles. However, the way you use it all that is done is that the leaves are collected, cleaned, dried, powdered and sifted into fine quality powder."

The way you use it meant for hair usage.

So a tid bit for those who might not have known.

[Lexie]

That's neat. I indigoed last night and my hands and fingernails turned blue. It looked creepy, but my nails are cool, I think...

I was wondering if the indigo for hair could dye clothing. I guess I'll find out when I wash this towel that got a ton of it. hehe

[Henna Sooq]

Hey Lexie, I would think it would at least stain the towel but the other form of processing for textiles probably gets the indigo to stay really long. But items from India I've boughten in the past like dresses seem to run their dye out some, which I wasn't too crazy about.
So blue nails and fingers, well at least we know your indigo is good!!